Argos

The Midland Great Western is known simply as the "Midland", it being the only railway of any importance with that name...........

In Smiffs today at Manchester Piccadilly. Looks like Christmas is back on! I was actual starting to think it was delayed due to the purdah period......

Seems to be sorted now. I received an email from the subscriptions team changing my subscription to electronic and a further one with registration details.

I am in London tomorrow, it's a bit of a trek to Ealing but I'll try and get across there and find out.................

Not in Smiffs at Manchester Piccadilly either. Christmas has obviously been cancelled.

If I used the contents of MRJ as the basis of a decision whether to buy the magazine or not I would have purchased very few editions. Most contain very little of direct interest, but not buying them would have been my loss. There is always something new in the way of skills, interest and always an enjoyable read. I often find the articles I don't go to first (on the basis of the contents page and a quick flick through) are the more enjoyable ones. The sentiment "don't judge a book by its cover" quoted above rings true in many instances.

Another confused customer here. I don't recall clicking on a print copy option. I have sent an email to the subscription team asking for a switch to the digital version.

Fortuitously my Amazon Newstand subscription has just expired so another taker!

Worthy of note a model of Fenny Stratford station appears in this month's (January) BRM. It's nicely done although set in the 50s & 60s rather than pre-grouping.

It's panto season so the only real response is "boooooooo!" As we've had the baddie presumably the fairy godmother is about to turn up and save the day?

Many years ago I had a friend called Mike who was perpetually late for everything. Eventually our group came up with the concept of Mike Adjusted Time. The idea was simple, if we were to meet up at say seven o' clock then when Mike arrived we reset our watches to seven as that was clearly the Mike Adjust Time. I feel the same concept should apply date wise to MRJ. Everyone would be happy.

Hi Northroader, I've found another copy of this photo in Neil Sprinks's pictorial of the line. The caption indicates it was a party saying farewell to a local family who were emigrating, hence the Sunday best and mass of people. The date is given as 1950 but I am suspicious of this given the neatness of the station and surrounds.

Hi Jan, Thank you, rather embarrassingly the answer is nothing. The platforms were cut from 6mm MDF and sanded smooth at the edges. I then sanded the top surface with 100 grit sand paper to scour the surface. Once secured the platform was then painted dark grey with a thin paint being sure not to mix the white and black too well to avoid producing a consistent finish. I might add some weathering powder before sealing the whole lot with Matt varnish.

Hi Northroader. The custom posts and border are well up the line from Dromahair. There is limited information around the photo so I don't know the circumstances. If they all arrived on the railbus it would have been a cosy trip!

I've spent the week end dabbling with stonework, which is now virtually complete. The remaining sections have been scribed and painted. Overall I'm quite pleased with outcome, although the stones are overscale, I just can't scribe them any smaller. I've also created the station sign on the printer using the only decent photo for reference. Next up I need to colour the sleepers and install the point rodding ready for ballasting.

Hi Airnimal, Could you not just cut some masking tape for the T and L then blast with primer again? This would restore the edges. You'd only need to do the section of the wagon with this lettering.

I believe it was the entire system, although in actuality only certain lines were used.

They can transfer my tax bill anytime they feel like!

No, just black.

I've completed scribing the foam to form the first section of wall. This is only coloured with a black wash at present and needs dry brushing with some light grey and brown to tone down the effect. Overall I'm quite happy with the effect though.

Good to see you back posting Milocomarty, I've missed your work. It's always inspirational.

Thanks both, Just to show the level of my ineptitude I had chemically blackened the rods...... I think I had been overly generous with the solder when laminating the coupling rods together on one side which led to the problem. On the other side all three pins were fine.

I knew I should have quit whilst I was ahead! Despite using oil soaked cigarette paper as a barrier I still manged to solder the last two crankpins solid. I've un-soldered these joints now and knocked a wheel off true in the process but with some fettling everything is back running. I just need to tackle those pins when I'm in the mood. Taking a break from the chassis I attacked the layout instead. The garage was raided for some 6mm MDF offcuts for the platforms. These took a while to size as I had to work out all the dimensions of the platforms and buildings with no datum. The 25 inch OS, Google Earth, Bing maps and the Irish Department of Arts, Heritage, Regional, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs (snappy title...) Historic Environment viewer all generated different dimensions so I went with an average and what looked right. The buildings are cut from Ratio course stone sheets and held together with blutak to get a feel for the situations. They still need the corners chamfering and all the remaining windows and doors cut. The white stuff around the platforms is foam that will be scribbed to represent course stone.

A trip to Middleport Pottery is well worth it if you are in the area (there's a good cafe there also). My wife used to sell some of her artwork there so we had quite a few visits, it a great place to wander round and soak up the industrial ambience (not atmosphere, that would have been rather unpleasant). I did plan a small shunting layout based on the building and canal arrangement at Middleport but realised the buildings would make it quite a time consuming build.

In fairness to the NSR they didn't really have ( or need) grand ambitions. They came into being to plug the gap in the rail network through the Potteries left after the Manchester & Birmingham abandoned it's intended line south of Macclesfield when it agreed to the amalgamation that formed the LNWR. It was always going to dependent on its neighbours for traffic arrangements and was keen not to upset the status quo. In return through its local industrial and passenger traffic it became one of the most consistently profitable pre-grouping companies.